ECOLOGICAL ISSUES
In addition to global warming, present methods of production as carried on in many places inflict other forms of serious and irreparable damage to the world's ecological systems, and to the biosphere upon which we all depend for survival. Many industrial facilities--especially in poor and less developed countries--produce vast amounts of air pollution. We are told that, of late, there has been an unprecedented increase in concentrations of not only carbon dioxide, but of methane and nitrous oxide as well in our atmosphere, due to the burning of fossil fuels and the clearing of vegetation in many places. In the United States alone, some sixty thousand deaths each year can be attributed to air pollution. Worse, it is reported that almost a million persons perish annually in China as a result of pollution-related lung disease. Add to this the toll from the same conditions in the rest of the world, and the picture that emerges is indeed very grim.
In addition to air pollution, reckless activities have been identified as having caused, and continuing to cause, pollution, deterioration, and poisoning to land and water in many places as well. As an illustration of this, consider the fact that, between 1950 and 1990, the earth lost one-fifth of its topsoil, and, at the same time, the same portion of its rain forests. A more recent estimate states that the current rate at which the world's croplands are being converted to "urban" (i.e., residential, industrial, mining, transportation, damming, etc.) uses has grown to between one half and one percent per year (this computes to between twenty percent and forty percent during a similar forty year period).. This too is especially prevalent in less developed nation-states, where poverty and need cause income and industrial goods to take precedence over environmental principles. Ecological offenses are thus more prevalent, and natural resources overexploited, in order to accommodate and supply the excessive consumption taking place in wealthier neighboring nations, with their throwaway cultures and traditions of planned obsolescence.
This is an issue that is similar in nature to global warming. We will not see satisfactory degrees of reduction so long as each sovereign nation-state has the last word regarding the quantity, quality, and implementation of steps that will be taken within its territory to improve the condition of our common environment. Thus, in the same fashion as stated heretofore, determinations and decisions, as well as regulatory steps, must be undertaken on a global basis. It is obvious that pollution to air, land, and water does not pause at national borders; but, rather, extends on to neighboring places ad infinitum. It is also obvious that different nation-states have varied laws, and impoose varied degrees of enforcement, regarding offenses that taint our worldwide environment. It therefore stands to reason that effective steps will only become reality--across the globe--when the causes are dealt with on a worldwide basis by a single universal governing body.
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